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Cape Town - Ricky Ponting believes the Australia batsmen's ability to play spin well and how the Aussie spinners fare will determine how far they go in the upcoming Cricket World Cup in the UK.
Ponting has been roped into Australia's coaching staff for the global tournament and the players could not have asked for someone with more experience at World Cups.
The legendary Ponting played in five 50-over world events and won three of them in a row, including two as captain.
Admitting that spin has been Australia's "Achilles' heel" over the last while, he feels they have to improve if they want to have any chance of success in England.
Ponting told The Telegraph: "The thing that will define Australia's success in the World Cup is, one, how well they bowl spin and, two, how well they play it.
"That's been their Achilles' heel the last 12 or 18 months. With (Adam) Zampa bowling well now, Nathan Lyon's obviously in the squad and Glenn Maxwell's done a good job with the ball whenever he's played.
"And I think some of our middle order are probably slightly better players of spin now than they were 12 or 18 months ago.
"With Warner there now and Steve Smith coming back in, the middle order looks a lot better against spin bowling than it probably was."
The Aussies play England and Sri Lanka in warm-up games before kicking of their World Cup campaign with a match against Afghanistan in Bristol on June 1.
Australia World Cup squad:
Aaron Finch (captain), Usman Khawaja, David Warner, Steve Smith, Shaun Marsh, Glenn Maxwell, Marcus Stoinis, Alex Carey, Pat Cummins, Mitchell Starc, Kane Richardson, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Jason Behrendorff, Nathan Lyon, Adam Zampa
